Community-College Group Releases Accountability Measures

Community colleges will have a new way to measure their students’ college readiness, academic progress, and job placement under a Voluntary Framework of Accountability released on Wednesday.

The new metrics, pilot-tested by 58 colleges this year, are designed to let “the public and policy makers understand what we do and how well we do it,” said Walter G. Bumphus, president of the American Association of Community Colleges. Members of the group often point out that assessing community colleges by the same measures used to evaluate four-year colleges—such as graduation rates—fails to recognize that community colleges have a different mission and serve a different population of students.

Over the next several months, the association will urge its members to adopt the framework and seek endorsement of it from accrediting bodies and adoption by states and community-college systems.